I've seen an increase in this "firehose" tactic among the passive-income folks, where the idea is to just saturate certain niches with AI-generated content, and collect some cents here and some cents there - in the hopes it will generate as much money as maintaining a single high-quality content channel.

Don't know if they actually make any money doing it like that. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across some content-creator that said he had hundreds of faceless YouTube channels, which was made possible due to AI tools.

My son and his friend made a YouTube channel that's just brainrot memes that, while they do it manually, could easily be fully automated by AI (or even without AI).

They have 17 million views in 2 months.

The strategy of spamming trash no-effort content definitely pays.

For just $199, I'll sell you my PDF explaining exactly how to do this well enough to make WAY more than only "some cents here and some cents there". Special limited time offer for HN readers, reduced from my normal price of $1,489!

P.S. Or get it free when buying my $499 "how to make money selling people how to make money guides" guide!

(/s. I generally think HN comments should avoid jokes unless they're genuinely really cleverly funny, which this comment isn't - I only justified it to myself by the fact that the sort of people selling these trashy guides are the same people doing what you're talking about, and I feel they deserve mockery and shaming.)

Sure, as long as it is within the framework of the law.

Some contracts are illegal, and purely made to intimidate the other party - and completely rests on the fact that said other party will never challenge or even check if the contract is valid in the first place. Hence why so many of these contracts also have arbitration clauses which stipulate that the parties must resolve through private arbitration.

Any time someone has the balls to challenge these things is also a win for the working man.

> Sure, as long as it is within the framework of the law.

You mean, like the one in the article the GP is pretending not to understand?

Not sure how this is ethically different from industry plants or payola. Things which have been in the industry since the dawn of time. Astroturfing with fake fans is just the natural next step due to how easy it is. Back in the day some labels would drum up fake engagement by handing out tickets to influential people, paying certain people to go, and things like that.

If I remember correctly, you need to be nominated by someone to be considered for the 30U30 list. Some of the people on those lists will literally run their own campaigns to get on the list, meaning that they'll pay people to nominate them, pay PR firms to run stories and campaigns. Other people do seemingly nothing, and just get nominated by legit people that admire them.

So, I'm fairly certain lists like that will attract some amount of unscrupulous narcissists.

They've just become hype-men for their own investments.

I'm curious how Andreessen came to this motto. Introspection is just a feedback loop, where you evaluate your actions, and adjust for when going forward. Not too unlike a control loop.

Maybe the current AI landscape is a symptom of that mentality - that everyone should just pour as much money and resources into it, never look back, never measure, just keep pushing forward. If you start asking questions, you're in doubt. If you're in doubt, you're a roadblock for progression.

I think there's a war in the middle east. And a circus back home. Think those are hogging the spotlight right now.

Would you have been uninterested in Apollo at the time because of the Vietnam war?

Or are you maybe just generally uninterested in space exploration?

There was no social media and high-speed internet in your pocket during the Vietnam war.

We are literally bombarded with information every waking moment of our lives, and consume more highly-emotional information to take a break from too much information.

Which is why allowing oneself to appreciate something as positive and inspiring as the Artemis Program is so important these days.

Curious, is The Sims considered a "girl game"?

People that have used to be fat, and then lost a lot of weight, will know how brutally different people will treat you. Whereas you'd practically be a ghost before weight loss, random people will suddenly look you in your eyes, smile, even start conversations with you.

Some will of course argue that you losing weight will also make you more confident, and thus you become more approachable. I think there's a lot of bias against fat people, against "unattractive" people, etc.

This also shows in the classroom, work, etc.

Of course, actually being conventionally attractive will come with its own perks. People will go out of their way to help you, and to support you. Over time this could very well boost your ego to also become more confident and decisive.

> Whereas you'd practically be a ghost before weight loss, random people will suddenly look you in your eyes, smile, even start conversations with you.

I watched something like this happen in a friend, but as an outside observer I saw a different explanation: The period when he got into shape involved a lot of changes for the better in his life, including becoming more outgoing, motivated, and disciplined (necessary prerequisites for weight loss in the pre-medication era). He also bought a new wardrobe and replaced his old worn out logo T-shirts and cargo shorts with clothes more appropriate for an adult. He also started paying attention to his grooming and hair style instead of looking like he just woke up.

For a while he tried to explain it all by his weight loss alone, but over time he realized it was an overall change in everything about the way he carried himself and presented himself to the world.

I won’t deny that there is some stigma around being overweight from some people, but I’ve also rarely seen a person change only their weight. Now that GLP-1s are everywhere I do know a few people who slimmed down rapidly without changing anything else and expected things like their dating life to completely change but have been disappointed that little has changed socially for them. They do feel a lot better though!

A data point, though my situation is not even about weight: I used to be skinny fat in my mid-twenties until mid-thirties - so basically still kind of slim but some belly fat and not much muscles. Kind of average, unremarkable.

After a breakup I started being more active again, I went bouldering once a week and gradually got into shape and then really athletic after about 2 years when I started going twice a week. My total weight didn't change at all. I dress just as good as before and have the same overall style. Of course most clothes simply look better on me, now that I'm more in shape. Same good job that I still like. I do go out a bit more. But overall I would say I really didn't change anything except getting more attractive from putting on muscles and losing fat.

It made a hell of a difference for dating. Before I felt mostly invisible but since then got approached in bars all the time, which rarely happened before. After some time I got way more confident - but when this stated I sure wasn't yet. Some woman even told me into the face that I lacked confidence after they approached me and realized I don't have the personality and/or confidence matching my appearance. They certainly only approached me because of my appearance.

The people only loosing weight are probably held back by other things. If they changed everything but their weight they likely wouldn't have more success either. I would say I had most things figured out already before and It seems I was held back only by having an average build. Just getting fit absolutely made the difference for me.

> Before I felt mostly invisible but since then got approached in bars all the time, which rarely happened before.

Physical attractiveness is extremely relevant in the context of cold approaches in a dating environment. I won’t disagree with you there.

However getting approached at bars is very different than working with someone in an office setting or having your papers graded in a university setting.

Its pretty much all that matters when we reduced dating to a profile pic and a swipe. You don't get to show off confidence or hobbies or way of life 99% of the time. Just a few seconds and a picture. The rest comes later.

>getting approached at bars is very different than working with someone in an office setting or having your papers graded in a university setting.

I wonder if thats changed, too. School is probably similar, but there's an increasing notion of "don't shit where you eat" that makes office romance difficult. I'm sure people will notice, but they may not want to approach otherwise.

> Its pretty much all that matters when we reduced dating to a profile pic and a swipe

You can also list your job, that matters a lot more than your profile picture if you are a man, doctors easily get dates etc.

Sadly, listing "game developer" or "programmer" tends to have the opposite effect. We aren't "prestigous" enough to be carried by our jobs (despite making decent money), and we still get a lot of that old school "nerd" persona to boot.

I'd have better luck pretending to be an artist, despite my modeling skills being barely above "Hello World".

>After a breakup I started being more active again...

Was it the changes or the breakup itself? Most men don't get "good" at dating until they become a certain amount of jaded. Hence the stereotypical freshly divorced man mopping the floor with the dating pool. The changes sure wouldn't have hurt, but still.

Is there a stereotype about newly divorced men being really good at dating?

If anything I thought it was the opposite.

Divorced men have an easier time finding dates, yes.

> If anything I thought it was the opposite.

Think of it in another context, who do you think have an easier time getting a job, a guy with 10 years of experience that currently doesn't have a job or a guy that never had a job? It is possible the guy with 10 years of experience got fired for a good reason, but on average most people want the guy with experience.

Men don't evaluate women for the same things, so it can be a bit hard to understand, but it makes perfect sense once you understand it. Rather it is weird that men don't value women with experience the way women do with men.

The breakup after years of relationship certainly was a big change in my live. I broke up but I don't think that made me jaded. I get what you mean though, I would say I got a bit more jaded after getting more confidence and that helps now. But that was long after I noticed increasing interest from women.

Sounds like a body recomp- well done!

Edit: no idea why downvoted but it refers to staying roughly the same weight while building muscle and reducing fat. And having tried it, it’s hard! I stand by my “well done”

Thanks! I really feel I had it easier than most though because of genetics I guess. I see others train much harder for less results. I didn't even change my diet much except shifting to a lot more protein-rich food. I have lots of respect for people loosing a lot weight and having to work way harder than me for it.

If I were to guess I imagine the downvotes are due to the use of an upvote being preferred over (albeit it well intentioned) comments of "well done" in HN threads (in order to keep signal to noise ratio high)

I never understood that. The presence of simple comments loke "Nice!" or "I agree" are really rare anyways, and I don't find it difficult to scroll past them like I would with any other comment whose first few sentences I don't find salient

Fair, I mostly was thinking it would be nice to give people who want to try it themselves the term that’s most often used.

It’s hard - you have to eat around maintenance level calories but you also need to make a high percentage of them protein and also keep enough carbs that you don’t bonk if you’re doing any cardio (I like jump rope myself). Just cutting or bulking gives a little more flexibility.

Makes sense and it's a new term for me so thanks for sharing :)

>For a while he tried to explain it all by his weight loss alone, but over time he realized it was an overall change in everything about the way he carried himself and presented himself to the world.

All of what you're saying is just looks. Clothes, posture, etc. all matter and we all know some exceptions to the rule, but people make clothes look good and not so much the other way around.

>Now that GLP-1s are everywhere I do know a few people who slimmed down rapidly without changing anything else and expected things like their dating life to completely change but have been disappointed that little has changed socially for them.

Not everyone looks better if they slim down. And if you do it the wrong way, or don't update your clothes to not be baggy, or just plain have excessive expectations, it's going to be disappointing. Losing weight just gets you to the baseline of where you might not make people want to look away or find reasons to not like you. If you're short, then you'll still be short after losing weight. If you're ugly in the face, you'll still be ugly, if not more ugly. I know you're talking about men because even overweight women have lots of options. Dating is also nearly impossible for average men now. You shouldn't assume that weight doesn't make a huge difference based on a few examples of guys who can't get dates. Think of it more like not being fat is to make others not immediately blow you off for that one reason.

It is practically so much harder that I think it qualifies. How many rejections or years of effort do you think one must endure before he can reasonably say it's nearly impossible?

I'm not going to get into how stats are on my side, the dismal outcomes on dating apps are a reflection on the state of the overall market, etc. But these are far worse than most people expect.

I think there are too many variables to really control for well on this one. Obviously someone who does what your friend did is going to have many factors changing how people interact with them and it will accumulate into and even larger total effect.

I lost 100lbs very rapidly. The difference in attention and little social things was noticeable almost immediately. Same style of dress, moderately kept hair, but otherwise decent personal care on both sides of the weight loss.

What is interesting though to me is that I hit my goal weight right around the time some major life events happened and I pretty much was operating at the lowest self confidence levels I ever had in my life. I was less social and much more withdrawn than before.

I still would notice the “second glances” from folks I never got before, and even friendly greetings etc that were a bit weird at first to me.

I don’t think you can really translate these changes into dating success or whatnot without other life changes though. They just Lower the difficulty level - you still need to put the work in.

> He also bought a new wardrobe and replaced his old worn out logo T-shirts and cargo shorts with clothes more appropriate for an adult.

I think the problem many __men__ have with that is that an "appropriate" wardrobe looks more uniform and less individualized, basically boring.

I don’t think that’s particularly true. There’s a lot you can do with texture, colours and silhouettes, even within items that are “the same”. I do think most men are pretty unimaginative when it comes to dressing themselves though, and most can’t even do basic things like getting trousers hemmed to fit them properly.

Never forget the Australian newscaster who wore the same suit for a year and no one noticed/called him out for it. His broadcasting partner, a woman, had been called out for wearing the same outfit previously. There may be subtle variations available to men, but the simple fact is that many fewer people notice or care.

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-30069564

> There may be subtle variations available to men, but the simple fact is that many fewer people notice or care.

I wouldn’t say that’s the takeaway, even with a simple navy suit you have a lot of options.

What that article does do though is highlight just how low the bar is for men to dress.

The key point in his change was that he started looking like someone who cared enough to put some minimal effort into dressing himself.

It’s not about being uniform or bland. He went from old worn-out clothes he didn’t care about to wearing clothes that were appropriate for a business casual environment or a casual date. When you start dressing like you care, regardless of how unique and individualized, others notice.

It goes a little deeper than "does not care" though: worn out can also be a symptom of caring a lot. Caring in the way of having a strong desire to identify with the stuff worn, and newly bought stuff just not checking that box. Then any newly procured garb, no matter how carefully selected, perhaps even customized, will feel like being dressed up as someone else. It's like a trap, just not being wired for new clothes. I wonder if there's a connection to childhood dress-up play, as in kids who had good times masquerading as some archetype are less likely later in life to fall into that "that's-not-me" trap regarding new clothes.

It's caring about the wrong thing if you're looking to improve your life though. You need to logically reason through norms and expectations and realize you gotta put on the correct costume for the setting, even if you don't identify with it.

Otherwise "Thats not me" will be describing things like "successful career" and "romantic relationships".

I think many men look at clothes like the wrapping paper of a gift. They absolutely don't care what a gift comes wrapped in, it's the content that matters. Choosing wrapping paper or even thinking about it is boring as hell.

So they then project themselves onto women, and are then surprised that expectations are different.

They think they believe that but are probably simultaneously attracted to women in part because of how they dress and style themselves.

I wonder how clean the clothes looked, however. Clothes can be well worn but still appear clean and taken care of. There is a difference between "this is my favorite shirt" and "these are my grubbies I use while cleaning the house".

A man still strongly emotionally attached to faded, worn out logos from many years ago is probably not an appealing signal to most women looking for a man to date.

Part of what you signal with your wardrobe isn’t just that you care for yourself. You’re signaling to others that you care about how you appear to them. We can’t expect other people to ignore that signal because showing that you care about how other people see you is a proxy signal for caring about other people.

I was going to comment something similar to this. To an extent, dressing and grooming well is a sign of respect you show to other people as well as to yourself. If you can't clear that relatively low bar, don't be surprised when people aren't super excited about what you might add to their lives.

> If you can't clear that relatively low bar, don't be surprised when people aren't super excited about what you might add to their lives.

You mean like that guy giving keynote presentations in a turtleneck and jeans?

Yes, Jobs is kind of an exception to my general point, but I think it's a bad idea to live your life assuming you can be the exception.

I'm also not talking about having a great fashion sense though, and it's okay to prefer a more casual look. Just pay a little attention to how you dress and care for yourself.

Jobs looked put together.

> showing that you care about how other people see you is a proxy signal for caring about other people.

It's a very bad proxy for that—its somewhere between uncorrelated and anti-correlated to thing it is taken as a signal for (at least, if “caring about” is meant as having a positive concern for the feelings of rather than a desire to manipulate to extract value)—though (which makes caring about that signal itself a kind of signal.)

I wish the people who thought that was true would give me money instead of buying a suit.

By the way, in academia dressing like a salesman is often considered a no-no.

> showing that you care about how other people see you is a proxy signal for caring about other people

How so?

For many years in large corporations, pretty much the only acceptable dress was white shirt, tie, dark suit, and dress shoes. We were still wearing something like that at. trade shows into the 1990s before things started loosening up.

(Mildly funny story. One big, probably Unix, show the IBM staff showed in logoed polos and suddenly everyone else is like If IBM doesn’t need suits we sure don’t.)

I started dressing nice at work, reasoning that looking sharp would buy me a few seconds or minutes of grace to allow my social deficiencies to catch up - just in case an executive decided to ask me a question.

Of course, that never happened for months, years until the one day I went in wearing cargo pants and a gothy synth band shirt and was greeted by a delegation of executives from out of town engaging everyone in small talk…

I worked for a downtown firm for a while which loosened up dress code a little bit so I didn’t always wear my jacket in—though cargo pants and rock T would definitely have led to an HR meeting. One day I had to borrow a jacket from someone when I had to go to a nearby studio for a TV interview:-)

Men's fashion is a little boring, but there's a lot you can play with in terms of fabric and accessories within it anyway. Men's wear blogs are kinda interesting

And you can usually tell the difference between a tailored suit and something ill-fitting.

I find that buttoned shirts only work if your belly is flat, so you can wear it in your pants.

With even a tiny bit of belly fat, ime it is better to just wear a t-shirt and not wear it in your pants.

I don't think this is true, but you won't be able to just grab a shirt off the rack and rock it. Look at Penn Jillette when he was larger, as an example. He was always dressed to the nines. He also strategically incorporated vests into his wardrobe too.

Depending on your shape, a simple undershirt might be slimming enough, or adding shirt stays or shirt garters might help. Worst case you will have to get it tailored. A tshirt is obviously cheaper and easier though, but that signals something.

When I was a fair bit heavier though very active, off the rack shirts didn’t really fit me very well. Tall upper body and very broad shoulders from sports didn’t help. These days I seem much closer to just being able to buy stuff. Bought a new blazer last year and it didn’t need any tailoring which never used to be the case. And shirts work well enough.

Wear braces under your suit, and shirt garters. The combination keeps your pants and shirt exactly where you want them.

Thanks. It looks uncomfortable though and it seriously makes me wonder if there isn't a better way of keeping a shirt in place.

Shirt garters aren’t uncomfortable. I wear them with suits all the time. The other way to do it is to never lift your arms over your head or bend over at all.

Tailors can make a button down shirt that will fit your body. You will look fat, but you can look much nicer. It will cost you though.

While I can kind of see what you are aiming at, a basic button down and clean pants go a long way. Keep it ironed and clean, and you go even further. No need for the anything that looks like a uniform.

I tried going for just a button down and clean pants and was stopped by the police.

Can you elaborate?

PC said logo T-shirt and cargo shorts because they are so un-individual that they have become cliche.

I guess it all depends on the type of women you're trying to attract. I'm married and have kids, so old worn out logo t-shirts and cargo shorts sound nice and comfortable to me, in most everyday situations. I'll dress appropriate for the circumstance.

Isn't that the point of "appropriateness"? To define what allows one to be boring and disappear into the wallpaper for those who prefer to live that way.

Those who want to stand out will define what is appropriate for themselves.

Only if your idea of personality is expressed through a logo tshirt.

Only if your idea of personality is expressed through a textured fabric

Well yes.

Both of those choices express a lot.

And most women are going to prefer that over the worn out logo Ts.

I mean if you want to go beyond that and have a more distinctive look go for it!

That reminds me of when I was undiagnosed with hypothyroidism only in reverse. In my late 20s I made an effort to dress better, no jeans or dirty sneakers, hair cut, gel, gym at least three times a week. Then all that started to slide, brain fog, stay at home, just no energy.

It took probably 10 years but finally I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. I wonder if a lot of overweight people started out like me but were never diagnosed. At diagnosis I wasn't overweight but I have since gained weight just due to my metabolism now. I was always slim all my life now I'm on the low end of overweight.

So yeah weight can be a problem but so can other issues. It's difficult to be yourself when you have hidden weights you don't even realize are dragging you down.

> I won’t deny that there is some stigma around being overweight from some people, but I’ve also rarely seen a person change only their weight.

This feels like it could be a correlation vs causation thing. Its a lot easier to put effort in if you see it getting results. Is it that they suddenly put effort in triggering all this or is it the weighg loss made the investment of putting effort in return results where previously you'd need a much higher level of effort to see results making it only seem worth it after the weight loss?

Or is it the weight loss resulted in higher self confidence giving all sorts of knock on effects.

I think its really hard to tease apart cause and effect here. Would the same changes be possible without the weight loss or have the same results is kind of a hard question to answer.

I have a lot of respect for folks that successfully lose a great deal of weight. If I know someone did that, my estimation of them generally goes up, several notches. I'm no stranger to quitting stuff, but significant weight loss is still terrifying to me. I could benefit from losing 20-30 lbs, myself, and it's not been easy. Success has been ... elusive.

Maybe it's different, these days, with GLP-1 drugs (I have always called it "Gila Lizard Poison" in my head), but it takes serious discipline and grit to lose the weight, and keep it off.

That generally comes from massive personal change; both internal, and external. Quite difficult.

Losing weight is one of the prime examples of the difference between simple and easy. We've evolved over millions of years to try to gain weight; reversing that is hard.

It's difficult if you think of it as big, but what if you break it down into smaller, manageable steps? Start by being consciously aware of what you eat in a day (or better yet, week); write it down, do some back of the napkin calorie calculations.

Then adjust. Change one habit; could be reducing portion size by a hundred grams, drinking less, switching to black coffee, I don't know what people have for habits.

Same with exercising, don't go all in at once, try going to the gym or for a long walk once a week. It takes six weeks to stop, change or start a habit, so it will take some self-discipline for that period. But if it's small, incremental change instead of a "change your life around" it's a lot more manageable.

Also be aware of the "survivorship bias", the "before / after" posts on social media, the "I changed my life in $period" - these make it look like it was an overnight lifestyle change, but that's not necessarily true, what you see is the end result and if you pay attention you'll notice that usually there's years between the before / after without any breakdown or in-between progress.

I’ve noticed there’s a similar challenge in keeping bad ideas out of your head.

Weight loss, debt recovery, and other habit changes are just that - changes to habit which are much more difficult if you don't admit that's what you're doing.

This has been discussed from time immemorial and confronting it as it is (that in the case of habits we are more animal than rational) is the beginning of change.

An example is that you can't just "cut it out" you have to replace it with something else.

>Some will of course argue that you losing weight will also make you more confident

Having been one of the people who experienced this (well the inverse, scarily skinny to lean and muscular), the confidence comes entirely from people in your life congratulating you, followed by strangers and new people just having a baseline positive glow towards you.

I don't know who came up with that line, it's repeated a lot, but I am almost certain it came from someone who never experienced the transition and soothed their ego by telling themselves it's all just a state of mind.

Both can be true: A person’s state of mind is affected by people around them.

Height as a man is also a huge bonus, at least in the cultures to which I’ve been exposed. There are examples I can think of men not being conventionally attractive, but just in the top quintile of height, and receiving special attention in dating and leadership opportunities.

I remember reading some study that (in men) height compared to your peers at 16-19 highly correlates with confidence.

Having been overweight my entire life until recently, this is accurate. The "it's just your newfound confidence" argument misses the mark completely.

The baseline level of basic respect you receive from strangers such as simply making eye contact, holding doors, or initiating small talk changes almost overnight. It is a very bitter reality to wake up to when you realize you were basically invisible before.

Are you sure it's not your username? ;)

I think being conventionally attractive gives you a lot more chance practice socialising and my observation is that, people who use that chance get so good at it, they remain very good at relationships even at old age.

Ive seen the opposite in some people.

I know a ~55ish year old lady who is beautiful, but looks 55. I see her adjusting to her new reality and its painful. I imagine she used to be able to get away with being mean and sarcastic because she was so hot.

Now it just causes office fights. "I wont work with X" is something Ive heard.

The interesting part is that I originally only worked with her on the phone, so I always thought she was mean... Then I saw her in person and everything clicked.

Problem with that story is that you "imagine" her to have history to match your ideas about how people behave, but you do not really know her history.

plenty of mean and sarcastic ugly people around too

Some ugly people are mean because they are ugly and take their frustrations out on the world.

Some pretty people are mean because they can get away with it and never learned that it's often counterproductive in the long term.

This is just some people, others act differently.

They often have "other reasons" people put up with it - even just being the office attack dog you sic on annoying customers will make you a valuable team member.

In my opinion, a lot of ugly people start off by trying to be nice, then gradually become more bitter and cynical the more they have to take shit from other people. At least I feel like that has happened to me, and I'm not even so ugly (imho). The amount of gaslighting I've put up with from everyone over the years has really been infuriating and has led me to a lot of misery in my life, and also turned me away from the things that might have actually made a difference.

This. Childhood experiences are formative, and the peer environment from early years through adulthood is usually brutal. My expectation is that confidence and grace is evenly distributed at birth, but is added to the physically attractive and denied to the unattractive almost immediately. I've always found the physically-unattractive-but-socially-attractive especially interesting because they've succeeded, often along with a very cool peer group.

>My expectation is that confidence and grace is evenly distributed at birth, but is added to the physically attractive and denied to the unattractive almost immediately.

I don't think it would be evenly distributed, but it goes something like that. You can choose to behave confidently up to a point, but people reject such behavior from an ugly person. Ignoring this social feedback can get you into a lot of trouble.

>I've always found the physically-unattractive-but-socially-attractive especially interesting because they've succeeded, often along with a very cool peer group.

Some of these are brutal too. I've known some real busted dudes who got attractive girls to like or marry them somehow. I assume it's often money, connections, and/or encountering the right person who is a sucker for your particular characteristics. Imagine being the ugly brother or nephew of a solid 10 (guy or girl), or being a multi-millionaire. You'd easily get many times more opportunities in all areas of life.

It is the same with being accompanied by a very beautiful woman.

Without changing at all, the difference of how people treat you when you are accompanied by a very beautiful woman is staggering. People are more nice and polite even dare I say subservient. People low key treat you like you are some sort of important person.

Beauty, and proximity to it, was is and will be a social status symbol.

My pet theory is that it is a term in the objective function to limit the mutation rate; hence the theories that claim that beautiful faces are the "averaged" faces of a race/ethnic group

This is a benefit. Being healthy and fit is objectively great for you. That your peers subtly nudge you in that direction is great. And in contrast, I feel horrible about "body positivity" - making you feel good about an objective problem that's incapacitating and killing you is a huge problem.

The problem with this stance is that the alternative (making people feel bad) will exacerbate the problem by contributing to feelings of hopelessness and ostracism.

The first prerequisite for making difficult changes is a supportive environment - not a judgmental one.

My personal experience was that the shame I'd been made to feel throughout middle school for being overweight fueled the motivation to buckle down and lose weight when I was independent and mature enough to come up with a diet that I could sustain.

Glad to hear you came out alright.

I’ll offer this argument: Society aggressively tells overweight people that it is bad to be overweight, in no uncertain terms, and with significant repercussions. Yet overweight people exist. Hence, the strategy of shaming people until they lose weight does not work in the general or average case.

And others, being made to feel such shame, will sink deeper into things that quickly make them feel better. Like overeating.

The problem with your stance is that it is based on a lie, and if pushed enough will break down catastrophically.

> the alternative (making people feel bad)

The actual alternative is to tell the fat people that they really need to fix their serious health problem!

Politely watching them die before you is maybe comfortable, but pretty messed up.

I’m sure they know, pointing it out doesn’t solve anything.

> Politely watching them die before you is maybe comfortable, but pretty messed up.

I disagree. It’s their choice, and they should be free to do what they want and not be criticized. In fact it’s not comfortable and sometimes I do want to say something but that’s not very kind.

Everyone should be free to do what they want.

This includes criticizing others!

Fair argument, but I don’t think criticizing their weight benefits either party. Unless you’re a super close friend and you do it occasionally as a reminder when they are going off the rails.

My family constantly says I’m on the bigger side - but does it help? Absolutely not. Does it hurt? A little bit, at least. Then they shame you for “going on a diet”, but also asks why you don’t eat. I don’t need others to pile their opinions on top of it.

This comment is Dunning-Kruger. Some overweight people are very unhealthy. Some thin people are very unhealthy. Some overweight people have genetics that prefer to store fat subcutaneously where its not very harmful. Some thin people have genetics which preferentially store fat in and around organs or muscles which is incredibly damaging, leads to chronic inflammation and eventually T2D and atherosclerosis, among others. Lets just say you can't judge a book by its cover and biology is complex. Unless you know a person, keep your mouth shut and your mind open!

There are sedentary thin people who live on doritos and active heavy people who eat salads. There are ALL KINDS!

Over 3 gigabases is a lot of room for genetic diversity, don't you think?

> I feel horrible about "body positivity" - making you feel good about an objective problem that's incapacitating and killing you is a huge problem.

It’s also a huge problem when people shame you for being fat. Some of it might be their fault but some of it not. Either way, I think it’s better to accept the body for what it is and work towards improving it and that’s what the “positivity” is. Shaming or judging someone is not a solution, it makes things worse. Yeah it can fuel motivation for some, and be quite detrimental to others - either way it’s nobody else’s business.

I'm also quite anti "body positivity" as it is usually espoused online, especially in relation to weight, which is by far the main focus of the movement. It feels quite self-destructive, you accept that your weight is unchangeable (even though I would say that in 75% of cases, and probably even more, it definitely isn't), and try to feel "proud" of it, even though there are piles upon piles of quite definitive research which proves that being overweight is horrible for your health, and you essentially start preventing your improvement, by choice this time. You start eating more because now you decide that you actually like being fat, now thinking that that's who you are and always will be, and you should feel proud of yourself (which is quite silly all in itself), and you just end up in a worse state than before. Body positivity will not help you get healthier.

But, we also shouldn't forget that the idea of body positivity didn't just pop up out of a vacuum, it's inherently a reaction to the culture. And here I disagree with you, if your peers and society in general just slightly nudges you to be healthy then that'd be okay, but that's not really what happens from my experience. I used to be quite overweight, especially while I was a teenager, and it was tough. People didn't really treat me like a peer, everyone avoided me, and made fun of me constantly for my weight. Random people would tell me how fat I am (by the way, I wasn't even that fat, far from obese). And in the end it fucked me up quite badly, I had no self-respect, no confidence, and I didn't really want to live at that point. I managed to turn it around, I stopped eating properly for days, often just snacking on a package of nuts for an entire day, I would start passing out when standing up, I would exercise so much until I couldn't walk anymore, and in the end it helped! I lost a ton of weight, people stopped tormenting me, and I started to be perceived as quite normal. I even had my first real boyfriend, nobody even looked at me before. But I was still miserable and felt way more unhealthy, at that point I was underweight and eating one portion of rice a day, maybe with some vegetables. No snacks or sweets of any kind. What was essentially bullying did help me to lose weight, but it did not make me healthy. That's just my personal anecdote, I bet there are people who used people making fun of them to start a journey of healthy self-improvement and honestly that's great, but I know most overweight people can't take it well. This is kind of the issue with using shame to get people to improve (though most people who hate on fat people definitely do not have that as their goal), as that shame often messes with your mental health, and makes progress way harder. Many overweight people straight up turn to food to try to feel good, just making the issue way worse. Or they get better in a self-destructive way like me. Ironically I was definitely not healthier when I was underweight, I felt physically awful most of the time, but because I looked quite normal people thought I was more healthy! Weight isn't a perfect metric for health itself, and we shame overweight people disproportionately more than underweight people (especially for women, though I bet for men it's different).

And I think a lot of people who try to follow body positivity have a similar experience to mine (at least I think so, I don't really have proof!). They have endured a ton of meanness for their weight, and often started to hate themselves because of it, and then they turn to body positivity as a sort of "Fuck you!" to the people who made them feel subhuman for their weight. And it's obviously also not productive, it's just a heavy swing in the opposite direction. It's caused directly by the shame society places upon being overweight. It's just the opposite side of the same coin, where I believe both sides suck.

- "Being fat is morally bad!"

- "No, being fat is morally good actually!"

It's kind of tough to find a good solution for this, I think we all agree that we should try to prevent as many people being an unhealthy weight as possible for the good of the people themselves and society as a whole. And I 100% don't think we should encourage people to be and stay obese just because it's easier, but making fun of people who are overweight does not actually help them either. I don't really have a solution for this. I personally try to stay "body neutral" in a way, I try to avoid putting a moral value on unhealthy weight, and I try to view it as any other health issue. But as a society, I think it makes more sense to avoid bullying fat people in the hopes that they take the bullying and turn it into nice and productive improvement, and just make being a healthy weight easier, make healthy food the easiest food to access, put value in sports and walking, and just make it easier to live a healthy life by default.

Sorry if this response kind of turned into a sob story, I thought it was important to try to offer what my own experience was like when I was experiencing the pressure to lose weight, as I know a few people who were or still are overweight who felt similarly, even if it's not universal! :)

I agree with a lot of this. For context, I'm very fat, so I feel a bit more that it's OK to say this, but yeah the body shaming stuff is a very interesting topic.

Obviously, if you feel that your whole life you're being bullied, then it's definitely right to be empowered someway to get someone to stop bullying you that way.

But we seem to have gone way beyond stopping body shaming and to promoting body positivity, which I think is dangerous. We shouldn't be teaching kids that it's OK to be fat and that's just a personal choice and not to change.

The simple fact is that being overweight leads to a lot of health issues. I'm fortunate that my body still tolerates being able to run, but at my BMI that's by no means a guarantee long term. I know that realistically, I need to drop 1/3 of my body weight ASAP and keep it off, or the chances of me living another 20 years is actually quite low.

I know exactly the issues with weight loss and how hard it is. At least 3 times in my life, I've lost 25% of my body weight through dieting, but it's always a constant struggle to keep that off if I ease off even a little bit. Most of the times I've regressed, it's been a combination of factors - an injury so I can't go out running for a few months, maybe winter so it's cold and wet and I'm also avoiding my daily lunchtime walk, and maybe my work is really boring so I'm comfort eating a bit more than I need each day, and suddenly before you even realise it, all the weight has suddenly re-appeared, and each time it's harder than the last to get rid of it and keep it off for good.

But definitely, we want a bit of that stigma to remain. Knowing that I'm fat and that most girls don't even look twice at me, or knowing that the health risks are very real and every day I stay fat, it's doing even more damage to my body... it all sucks in the moment, but it's all helping the motivation that something needs to change. It's not OK to just do nothing.

Yeah I think we agree. Clearly being overweight is not good and should be disencouraged, even apart from your own health, an overweight or obese person in a society just takes more a lot more resources go support, either causing a burden on the person themselves or on the society in which they live in. If that person gets to a healthy weight they can be more productive and require less healthcare support, this is true in almost all cases, and so it's just a win-win if we can get as many people as healthy as possible. This should include not just being "not-overweight", but also being very underweight, being sedentary, having an unhealthy diet, or bad mental health. All of those things if improved cause wins to everyone involved. I'm not 100% on board with the idea to measure people's inherent value by their productivity, but I believe most people tend to enjoy being productive and contributing to their community. There's no downside in decreasing the amount of people who are an unhealthy weight.

I think the issue with stigma is it's so hard to keep in balance, I want people to care of their health, and that'll take knowing that being a healthy weight is in fact good, but doing so in a non damaging way is super hard. In my mind I kind of see smoking at an okay "shame-level" (though you can correct me, maybe I'm straight up wrong on this). Nowadays everyone knows that smoking sucks (let's avoid the whole vape thing for now), it destroys your lungs, and eventually it kills you. But the stigma I saw in relation to smoking just seems more normal and proportional, people generally don't really like being around cigarettes, which is fair, and some people silently judge you, some will tell you to stop smoking, but... there's just not this need to denigrate people for their smoking habit the way it is for being overweight. Now, in the end you'll still feel miserable when you'll start trying to quit/lose weight, but there's nothing really to be done about that, that's just nature.

Honestly I think the underlying cause for this is some of the innate human behavior we still have as a species. We often view being unattractive (which being overweight usually is for most people) as a big moral fault, which gives you a pass to punch down on the person for this transgression. I think we kind of view overweight people in the same lens as someone who did something disgusting, and this might happen completely outside of our conscious comprehension. It then takes conscious effort not to feel that way by default. Honestly this might not be fixable, and maybe there is no way to fix shaming of overweight people on the societal level. All I know is if we help as many people as possible to lose weight, the amount of people shamed will go down that way, too.

I used to be fat, currently I'm not. A lot of people who hadn't seen me in a while congratulated me. After that I haven't noticed much difference TBH.

Same here. Afterwards I got more fat again, and again I don't notice a difference in how people threat me.

i think op is a woman.

> random people will suddenly look you in your eyes, smile, even start conversations with you.

i am not fat, infact very fit, athlectic and in shape. This never happens to me. maybe if you are a woman, this happens.

I feel this as a guy trying to lose weight very seriously this year. On one hand, I can lose weight but I will forever be short unless a miracle occurs lol. I’ve made my peace with being unattractive for the most part, the attempt to lose weight is primarily for health reasons.

I went from being a scrawny guy in my teens, to a chubby/fat gamer in my late teens/early 20s, and then a fit athlete in my mid 20s. While I had envisioned much more interest from the ladies, my biggest surprise was how much nicer, kinder, and helpful random people were. And in a professional setting, co-workers and leaders just treated you more seriously - especially when it came to handing out leadership roles on projects etc.

Also helps to not be a teenager.

He was fat in his 20s and then got fit, not teenager.

I was in the best shape of my life after religiously going to the gym for ~3 years in my late twenties.

Outside of a couple of women asking me for help at the grocery store with some heavy produce, it barely made any difference to how people treated me.

Being fit is just 1 aspect. These days you also have to look like you're a top 20% in a bunch of other categories as well.

Sorry, but no you’re not getting sympathy for being tall. Nor should you. Life is noticeably easier for tall men, all things considered.

Sincerely, Fellow Tall Person

I wonder how often it is unintentional or somewhat polite. As a kid I got into this habit of not really looking at obese or disabled people because I didn’t want to seem like I was staring at them like some of my slackjawed peers might. I think to an extent this bleeds over into adult life. Obese or disabled people might think it is malicious but the behavior might really come from good intentions at least to some degree. A boring dystopia sort of situation IMO.

Women maybe? I have lost weight and remained completely invisible to the world.

Alot of discussions from trans people have been very validating of gendered experiences as they get to objectively experience both and see the difference

Do you believe that they get an unadulterated perspective of both experiences? That they would be getting the experience of a woman rather than that of a trans woman?

Apparently some make a distinction regarding whether they pass or not to address this. James Barnes is one person whose written about this

https://www.newsweek.com/trans-man-broken-men-1817169

That’s a great article but it confuses me how the author shows affinity for so many feminine traits and stereotypically feminine interests, that I wonder what the draw or perceived appeal of living as a man was.

Maybe that’s in a different article.

> I feel safer; I no longer walk around at night clinging to pepper spray

some people report not being talked over in office settings

honestly you could benefit from talking to someone professionally if this is still confusing to you by now. Its not uncommon for this to be confusing, you could just accelerate your understanding by having someone deconstruct why it is still confusing for you

Well, I imagine gender dysphoria is more than thinking the grass is greener

Thank you for sharing that, that was a valuable read.

It's an interesting philosophical question. Even if a male who makes some effort to disguise himself as female claims that he now experiences life as women may, in a general sense, do so, I don't see how he could possibly know if this is true or not. Being male and not female, he doesn't have this experiential frame of reference to make the comparison.

Depends how well they pass and if the other person knew them pre-transition.

those considered passing, yes

and that of a man as a trans man. there is a lot less fanfare, media, and discernment on this compared to trans women, while being more common than people think

The thing that interests me is how eager people are to find rationalizations explaining how this effect doesn't exist

When I was on antidepressants I noticed people were much more likely to approach me and start up a conversation. I think so might have been more at ease a confident an also more likely to smile and make eye contact with strangers myself. So I think self confidence and general openness play a big part too.

That is probably true. I remember I felt really bad when my high school teachers were openly flirting with students during class.

But there is another side to the coin. If you are attractive, a lot of the nastier people out there will try to manipulate you and gaslight you just to be closer to you all the time. Some people will be cruel and nasty to you just because they know you will sexually reject them. Some teachers will be mean or passive aggressive towards you because they are attracted to you and they know they can never be with you.

It is actually very dangerous to be attractive but not to have the social skills to handle the way people react to it. Many attractive people grow up with these social skills because they grown up as attractive children and they get used to it, but for some people that suddenly become attractive because they lose weight or another reason it can be very challenging. Similarly for people that are just born introverts and don't have the social skills.

Interacting with anyone is a risk. They might take any form of attention to a level that forces you to set a boundary, or uncomfortably accepting the boundary already being crossed, turning a positive intent into a a net-negative interaction. If you're attracted to someone, there are a lot less boundaries. If you find someone unattractive, a lot of other people probably do to, increasing the risk they're attention starved, and more likely to make it awkward. Most people feel that risk, regardless of their own attractiveness. "Confidence" can help signal they're less likely to make it weird, but it's certainly no guarantee.

Among all the other reasons that people have explained that this isn’t exactly correct a probably isn’t entirely attributed to just weight… I’ll make an opposite proposition.

Perhaps we are evolutionarily programmed to avoid people with impulse control issues?

I think there might be something here. I believe people flock to bigger, stronger and healthier people as some sort of evolutionary strategy for survival. If we were in a crisis and had to revert to tribes requiring everyone to pitch in to save humanity would you rather have the person who can resist impulses and keep a strict schedule (fit/healthy) or the person who looks like they lay around eating everything in sight. Using looks alone someone may assume the more healthy and fit person would be better to keep in their circle and thus prioritize being in their good graces.

I understand that it's not that simple, and someone's physical ability has nothing to do with intelligence in the real world. Unfortunately we're all subject to making split second judgements when interacting with strangers and as a result people don't think deeply about how that impacts those they deal with (or don't care).

Nope, it's cultural. If you look at cultures outside of your narrow window (in both time and space), you'll find that the perception of fatness has varied wildly over the millenia.

If it just was cultural then women wouldn't have evolved abnormally thin waists, they have that since men finds it attractive, there is no other reason to have as thin waists as women has otherwise.

Women in every single culture have much thinner waist hip ratios than the male counterparts, suggesting that men like them thin.

Yes, straight men tend to like when women have wider hips than waists. That doesn't mean that skinniness is attractiveness at a biological level.

Over history being fat wasn’t an impulse control issue. It is now.

If we are wired to detect something doesn’t mean it has to be a first order attribute. Isn’t fat now versus fat then.

Gambling, addiction, setting fires, fighting, chronic lying, etc… some of those are first ordered detectable and some maybe aren’t.

"Attractive" is something evolved as well though, so that just passes the buck. It's culturally determined as well of course.

I lost 100 pounds and as amazing as it was that everyone (not just potential mates but literally EVERYONE, even family) no longer thought I was lazy and was just… nicer to me - was honestly kind of depressing. And I was an active fat person! I often did 50+ mile bike rides when I weighed 280.

People aren’t much more sophisticated than our ape brethren at the end of the day.

There’s a decent anime exploring this on Netflix right now. “Lookism” https://m.imdb.com/title/tt22297722/

> Whereas you'd practically be a ghost before weight loss, random people will suddenly look you in your eyes, smile, even start conversations with you.

All the slim ghosts might think different here.

> People will go out of their way to help you, and to support you. Over time this could very well boost your ego to also become more confident and decisive.

This was my first thought about why the move to online works for men but not women. When I was attractive, people intuitively thought I was competent as well. I could speak with authority on topics not knowing more than the average and people would believe me.

Fo women this might sometimes even be the other way around - more beauty is associated with less intelligence.

I noticed the same thing after I started dressing smarter.

The difference between female/male is also abysmal.

I've experienced this personally while losing weight. Some people will argue for the confidence thing, and it's a factor I'm sure, but there's a palpable difference in treatment. Also the trauma/trust issues that come from being seen as 'less than' don't resolve over night, and it takes some time of that palpable change to help build the confidence.

Race and gender also make a difference. People don’t want to say it. But back when dating apps put out more stats I remember this was well known.

This is a basic fact of "the human condition" that everyone needs to understand, and accept.

Evolution made us this way for survival reasons, and it's mostly pushing us towards being healthy. And whatever your opinion, it will not change.

Based on how we evolved attractiveness is still one of if not the most important traits you can have in life.

Its sad, but it is what it is. And why its sad? Because this uneven treatment is sometimes cause of big evil in the world.

I find even something as simple as a haircut can have a massive effect.

Also true of people who used to be young and then became old. And trans people also have a lot to say about this.

Or as 30 Rock put it, attractive people live in the "bubble".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bubble_(30_Rock)

There's always somebody who has it worse. That doesn't mean their troubles don't matter.

I don’t know how widely this observation has been made, but relatedly it is very hard to be a very attractive person. I’m very much glad to be average.

I’ve known a few very attractive people close up, and their lives are difficult. One example: you are presented with so many partners it can be very difficult to choose, and hard to discern who actually likes you as a person vs is just attracted to you. How can you pick a partner who is going to be a good match and faithful? And when you’re in a relationship, it’s harder to stay faithful when other people are throwing themselves at you and you suffer FOMO.

I could go on, but you get my point.

Or women vs. men, same.

step 1 be attractive

step 2 don't be unattractive

I work in the maritime domain for the Norwegian gov., where we've had a couple of demos. AFAIK, there's only one agency here that uses Palantir software - the customs service - and that's not any secret info.

But we frequently work with people from adjacent fields (military, law enforcement, aviation, other maritime, etc.), basically the usual suspects as far as Palantir clients go.

My observation has been that there's no strong push or even desire to become a customer. The people I've talked with have either been outright unimpressed, or have already similar systems they've rolled out themselves.

From the demos we've had, it seemed to me that Palantir can do well in countries where all the potential clients are isolated from each others (disorganized even), and do not have and good means of sharing data / communicating with each others.

There's a lot of hype, myth even, around what their tools do - and I can understand why many are just saying "no thanks" when they come knocking. It is sort of underwhelming.

Don't worry, they'll buy your boss's boss nice dinners and box seats at sports games until they see the light.

Organizations that are already running well with solid operational processes and data governance won't gain a huge benefit from Palantir. They can only add a lot of value in organizations full of lazy, incompetent people. This describes many government agencies. But not all.